[Compare](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/compare) / browsers

# Chrome vs Brave

The same Chromium 155 underneath, two very different faces: Brave calls itself Chrome in the user agent but Brave in the client hints, randomises cores, screen and canvas, sends Sec-GPC, drops a TLS extension and switches off Google's Topics and Fenced Frames.

[Google Chrome](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/browsers/chrome) [Brave](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/browsers/brave)

[Brave](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/browsers/brave) and [Chrome](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/browsers/chrome) on the fleet are the same Chromium release — 155.0.8059.39 against .40, measured the same morning. What separates them is everything Brave adds on top: Shields (ad and tracker blocking, on by default), fingerprint "farbling", and a privacy stance that shows up in the headers. For a scraper that's a trade-off: fewer requests and a moving fingerprint, but a browser that announces itself as Brave to anyone reading client hints.

## As a developer: driving them

|  | Google Chrome | Brave |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Version on the fleet | Chrome 155 stable, with `beta` and `dev` channels and pinned previous majors. | Brave 1.97 on Chromium 155 (the same build week as Chrome), with a `beta` channel (1.98); no dev channel, no pinned majors. |
| Playwright client, options | `chromium` 1.60; `channel`, `version`, `cdp`, `live_view`, `screen_size`. | `chromium` 1.60; `channel`, `cdp`, `live_view`, `screen_size`. |
| Playwright features | Main-world evaluate, console events, init scripts, routing, screenshots, PDF, device emulation, tracing — all work (measured). | **The same list, all working** (measured). |
| Page weight | Loads everything the page asks for. | Shields (ad and tracker blocking) are on by default, but on a news front page (theguardian.com, two runs each) Brave made 65–70 requests against Chrome's 60–91 — within run-to-run noise. Don't count on traffic savings; block what you don't need with routing ([bandwidth diet](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/cases/bandwidth-diet)). |
| Web platform | Everything in Chromium 155, including Google's Topics API, Fenced Frames and `navigator.connection`. | Chromium 155 **without** the Topics API, Fenced Frames and `navigator.connection` (measured) — privacy features Brave removes. Code that relies on them behaves differently. |

## As a scraper: what the site sees

|  | Google Chrome | Brave |
| --- | --- | --- |
| User agent | `Chrome/155.0.0.0` on Linux. | **The identical string** — Brave doesn't name itself in the user agent. |
| Client hints | Brands `Google Chrome 155`, `Chromium 155`; full version `155.0.8059.39`. | Brands **`Brave 155`**, `Chromium 155`; full versions reduced to `155.0.0.0`. Anything reading `Sec-CH-UA` sees Brave, not Chrome. |
| Headers | Chromium's order: … `accept`, `sec-fetch-site`, `sec-fetch-mode` … | Adds **`sec-gpc: 1`** (Global Privacy Control) before the fetch metadata — a header Chrome never sends. |
| TLS | JA4 `t13d1517h2_8daaf6152771_…` — 19 extensions. | JA4 `t13d1516h2_8daaf6152771_…` — 18 extensions; same ciphers, different full fingerprint. |
| HTTP/2 | Chromium's SETTINGS and WINDOW\_UPDATE. | **Identical** (measured). |
| Fingerprint values | The machine's own: 36 cores, a 1280×720 screen, one canvas hash for every site. | **Farbled:** 8 cores, a 1280×800 screen and a different canvas hash — plausible values that change between sessions and sites, so a fingerprint taken today won't match tomorrow's. |
| Languages, plugins | `navigator.languages` `en-US, en`; 5 plugins. | `en-US` only; 7 plugins. |
| Bot checks | bot.sannysoft.com: only "WebGL Renderer" flagged (SwiftShader on a GPU-less server). | The same single flag (measured). |

## Which to pick

-   **Chrome** when the site should see the most common browser on the web: the `Google Chrome` brand, full version numbers, no extra headers, a stable fingerprint that matches what millions of users send.
-   **Brave** when a moving fingerprint is worth more than blending in: sites that track devices across sessions get different cores, screen and canvas every time.
-   **Don't expect Brave to pass as Chrome:** its user agent says Chrome, but the client hints, the `sec-gpc` header and the TLS fingerprint all say Brave. Pick it for what it is.

## Measured on the fleet (2026-10-09)

One headful launch of each through the same proxy, probed from inside a page and via tls.peet.ws.

### Launch and cost

Single run; timings depend on the proxy and on fleet load.

|  | Google Chrome | Brave |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Launch body | {"headless":false} | {"headless":false} |
| Threads used | 2 (linux\_headful) | 2 (linux\_headful) |
| Browser version | 155.0.8059.39 | 155.0.8059.40 |
| Launch request → browser ready | 1.2 s | 1.5 s |
| Playwright connect | 0.1 s | 0.3 s |
| Load example.com | 2.9 s | 0.5 s |
| Load tls.peet.ws/api/all | 5.4 s | 1.5 s |

### What the network sees

From tls.peet.ws/api/all, requested by the browser itself. JA3 hashes change between runs of the same build (GREASE), so compare JA4 and the HTTP/2 fingerprint.

|  | Google Chrome | Brave |
| --- | --- | --- |
| HTTP version | h2 | h2 |
| JA4 | t13d1517h2\_8daaf6152771\_cb7bf5808d99 | t13d1516h2\_8daaf6152771\_806a8c22fdea |
| Peetprint hash | fc97c1cdfb1409c9a9326c1b726d1dee | 8f568b2a409b82d0ec24cb84bf3bc3fc |
| Akamai HTTP/2 fingerprint | 1:65536;2:0;4:6291456;6:262144|15663105|0|m,a,s,p | 1:65536;2:0;4:6291456;6:262144|15663105|0|m,a,s,p |
| Cipher suites / extensions | 16 / 19 | 16 / 18 |
| Header order (first 12) | method, authority, scheme, path, sec-ch-ua, sec-ch-ua-mobile, sec-ch-ua-platform, upgrade-insecure-requests, user-agent, accept, sec-fetch-site, sec-fetch-mode | method, authority, scheme, path, sec-ch-ua, sec-ch-ua-mobile, sec-ch-ua-platform, upgrade-insecure-requests, user-agent, accept, sec-gpc, sec-fetch-site |

### What page scripts see

Read with page.evaluate on example.com. Cores and memory are the server's and vary between fleet nodes.

|  | Google Chrome | Brave |
| --- | --- | --- |
| navigator.userAgent | Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86\_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/155.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 | Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86\_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/155.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 |
| UA-CH brands | Google Chrome 155 · Chromium 155 · Not(A:Brand 24 | Brave 155 · Chromium 155 · Not(A:Brand 24 |
| UA-CH full version list | Google Chrome 155.0.8059.39 · Chromium 155.0.8059.39 · Not(A:Brand 24.0.0.0 | Brave 155.0.0.0 · Chromium 155.0.0.0 · Not(A:Brand 24.0.0.0 |
| navigator.platform / vendor | Linux x86\_64 / Google Inc. | Linux x86\_64 / Google Inc. |
| Languages | en-US, en | en-US |
| Timezone / locale | UTC / en-US | UTC / en-US |
| Screen (w×h×availW×availH×depth) | 1280x720x1280x720x24 | 1280x800x1280x800x24 |
| Window outer / inner / DPR | 1288x805 / 1280x720 / 1 | 1280x727 / 1280x720 / 1 |
| hardwareConcurrency / deviceMemory | 36 / 32 | 8 / 32 |
| WebGL vendor | Google Inc. (Google) | Google Inc. (Google) |
| WebGL renderer | ANGLE (Google, Vulkan 1.3.0 (SwiftShader Device (Subzero) (0x0000C0DE)), SwiftShader driver) | ANGLE (Google, Vulkan 1.3.0 (SwiftShader Device (Subzero) (0x0000C0DE)), SwiftShader driver) |
| WebGL version | WebGL 2.0 (OpenGL ES 3.0 Chromium) | WebGL 2.0 (OpenGL ES 3.0 Chromium) |
| WebGPU (navigator.gpu) | yes | yes |
| Canvas hash | f5a94624 | 2025530b |
| navigator.webdriver | no | no |
| window.chrome / navigator.connection | yes / yes | yes / no |
| Plugins / PDF viewer | 5 / yes | 7 / yes |
| Notification.permission / permissions.query | default / prompt | default / prompt |

### Web platform features

Presence probes; a user agent that claims one version while exposing another's features is a detectable inconsistency.

|  | Google Chrome | Brave |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `Iterator.prototype.includes` (new in Chrome 154) | yes | yes |
| `FontFace.width` (new in Chrome 154) | yes | yes |
| CSS `text-decoration-inset` (Chrome 157) | no | no |
| `Iterator.prototype.join` (Chrome 153) | yes | yes |
| `Iterator.zip` (Chrome 153) | yes | yes |
| CSS `scroll-axis-lock` (Chrome 153) | no | no |
| `<camera>` element (Chrome 153) | yes | yes |
| `document.requestStorageAccessFor` (deprecated in 153) | no | no |
| Topics API (`document.browsingTopics`) | yes | no |
| Protected Audience (`navigator.joinAdInterestGroup`) | yes | yes |
| Shared Storage (`window.sharedStorage`) | no | no |
| Attribution Reporting (`window.attributionReporting`) | no | no |
| Private Aggregation | no | no |
| WebHID (`navigator.hid`) | yes | yes |
| CSS `margin-trim` (Chrome 155) | yes | yes |
| CSS `text-decoration-skip-spaces` (Chrome 155) | no | no |
| CSS `corner` shorthand (listed for Chrome 160) | no | no |
| CSS `symbols()` (Chrome 155) | yes | yes |
| `Element.streamAppendHTML` (Chrome 157) | no | no |
| `WebTransport.reliability` (on stable from Chrome 157; listed for 158) | no | no |
| `window.maximize()` — Additional Windowing Controls (Chrome 155) | no | no |
| Canvas `srgb-linear` colour space (on stable from Chrome 157) | no | no |
| Permission policy `media-playback-while-not-visible` (Chrome 155) | yes | yes |
| CSS `random()` (Chrome 156) | no | no |
| CSS `scroll-snap-type: pair` (Chrome 156) | no | no |
| Fenced frames (`window.fence`) | yes | no |
| `rel=compression-dictionary` (Chrome 156 updates) | yes | yes |

### bot.sannysoft.com

The classic headless-detection test page; what it marks red.

|  | Google Chrome | Brave |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Checks / failed | 57 / 1 | 57 / 1 |
| Failed checks | WebGL Renderer | WebGL Renderer |

### A plain-HTTP URL (http://ip-api.com/json)

Chrome 154 warns before loading insecure HTTP by default — does that reach an automated session?

|  | Google Chrome | Brave |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Final URL | http://ip-api.com/json/?fields=status | http://ip-api.com/json/?fields=status |
| HTTP status | 200 | 200 |
| Content loaded / warning page first | yes / no | yes / no |

### Playwright over the remote connection

Which client features work on this side.

|  | Google Chrome | Brave |
| --- | --- | --- |
| page.evaluate runs in the page's own world | yes | yes |
| addInitScript visible to page scripts | yes | yes |
| Console events | yes | yes |
| Request interception (page.route) | yes | yes |
| Screenshot | yes | yes |
| PDF | yes | yes |
| Mobile device emulation | yes | yes |
| Tracing | yes | yes |

Rows where the two sides differ are highlighted. IP addresses are replaced with placeholders (203.0.113.x). The probe is `compare/probe.mjs` in our repository; the raw result is below.

Raw output

```
{
  "ran_at": "2026-10-09T01:48:56.848Z",
  "sides": [
    {
      "label": "Google Chrome",
      "engine": "chrome",
      "body": {
        "headless": false
      },
      "launch": {
        "browser": "chrome",
        "resource_class": "linux_headful",
        "weight": 2,
        "launch_ms": 1240,
        "connect_ms": 132,
        "example_ms": 2891,
        "peet_ms": 5401
      },
      "network": {
        "http_version": "h2",
        "ja4": "t13d1517h2_8daaf6152771_cb7bf5808d99",
        "ja3_hash": "84b0f69cba23976c531c60f56f17aeea",
        "peetprint_hash": "fc97c1cdfb1409c9a9326c1b726d1dee",
        "ciphers": 16,
        "extensions": 19,
        "akamai_h2": "1:65536;2:0;4:6291456;6:262144|15663105|0|m,a,s,p",
        "akamai_h2_hash": "52d84b11737d980aef856699f885ca86",
        "header_order": [
          "method",
          "authority",
          "scheme",
          "path",
          "sec-ch-ua",
          "sec-ch-ua-mobile",
          "sec-ch-ua-platform",
          "upgrade-insecure-requests",
          "user-agent",
          "accept",
          "sec-fetch-site",
          "sec-fetch-mode"
        ]
      },
      "page": {
        "user_agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/155.0.0.0 Safari/537.36",
        "platform": "Linux x86_64",
        "vendor": "Google Inc.",
        "languages": [
          "en-US",
          "en"
        ],
        "hardware_concurrency": 36,
        "device_memory": 32,
        "max_touch_points": 0,
        "webdriver": false,
        "plugins": 5,
        "pdf_viewer": true,
        "ua_data": {
          "brands": [
            {
              "brand": "Google Chrome",
              "version": "155"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Chromium",
              "version": "155"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Not(A:Brand",
              "version": "24"
            }
          ],
          "mobile": false,
          "platform": "Linux",
          "architecture": "x86",
          "bitness": "64",
          "formFactors": [
            "Desktop"
          ],
          "fullVersionList": [
            {
              "brand": "Google Chrome",
              "version": "155.0.8059.39"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Chromium",
              "version": "155.0.8059.39"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Not(A:Brand",
              "version": "24.0.0.0"
            }
          ],
          "model": "",
          "platformVersion": "",
          "uaFullVersion": "155.0.8059.39",
          "wow64": false
        },
        "screen": "1280x720x1280x720x24",
        "window": {
          "outer": "1288x805",
          "inner": "1280x720",
          "dpr": 1
        },
        "timezone": "UTC",
        "locale": "en-US",
        "webgl": {
          "vendor": "Google Inc. (Google)",
          "renderer": "ANGLE (Google, Vulkan 1.3.0 (SwiftShader Device (Subzero) (0x0000C0DE)), SwiftShader driver)",
          "version": "WebGL 2.0 (OpenGL ES 3.0 Chromium)"
        },
        "canvas_hash": "f5a94624",
        "webgpu": true,
        "chrome_object": true,
        "chrome_runtime": false,
        "notification_permission": "default",
        "notification_query": "prompt",
        "has_focus": true,
        "connection_api": true,
        "stack_read_by_debugger": false,
        "features": {
          "iterator_includes": true,
          "iterator_join": true,
          "iterator_zip": true,
          "fontface_width": true,
          "css_text_decoration_inset": false,
          "css_scroll_axis_lock": false,
          "websocket_options_bag": null,
          "camera_element": true,
          "topics_api": true,
          "protected_audience": true,
          "shared_storage": false,
          "attribution_reporting": false,
          "request_storage_access_for": false,
          "webhid": true,
          "private_aggregation": false,
          "css_margin_trim": true,
          "css_text_decoration_skip_spaces": false,
          "css_corner_shorthand": false,
          "css_symbols": true,
          "stream_append_html": false,
          "webtransport_reliability": false,
          "window_maximize": false,
          "canvas_srgb_linear": false,
          "policy_media_playback_while_not_visible": true,
          "css_random": false,
          "css_scroll_snap_pair": false,
          "fenced_frames": true,
          "compression_dictionary": true
        }
      },
      "page_main_world": null,
      "sannysoft": {
        "checks": 57,
        "failed": 1,
        "failed_names": [
          "WebGL Renderer"
        ],
        "passed": 30
      },
      "plain_http": {
        "final_url": "http://ip-api.com/json/?fields=status",
        "status": 200,
        "title": "",
        "loaded": true,
        "warning_page": false,
        "page_text": "{\"status\":\"success\"}"
      },
      "playwright": {
        "evaluate_in_main_world": true,
        "console_events": true,
        "init_script": true,
        "route": true,
        "screenshot": true,
        "pdf": true,
        "mobile_emulation": true,
        "tracing": true
      },
      "browser_version": "155.0.8059.39"
    },
    {
      "label": "Brave",
      "engine": "brave",
      "body": {
        "headless": false
      },
      "launch": {
        "browser": "brave",
        "resource_class": "linux_headful",
        "weight": 2,
        "launch_ms": 1542,
        "connect_ms": 286,
        "example_ms": 504,
        "peet_ms": 1463
      },
      "network": {
        "http_version": "h2",
        "ja4": "t13d1516h2_8daaf6152771_806a8c22fdea",
        "ja3_hash": "38839c09cb2e2b08b44c991a1b255c5f",
        "peetprint_hash": "8f568b2a409b82d0ec24cb84bf3bc3fc",
        "ciphers": 16,
        "extensions": 18,
        "akamai_h2": "1:65536;2:0;4:6291456;6:262144|15663105|0|m,a,s,p",
        "akamai_h2_hash": "52d84b11737d980aef856699f885ca86",
        "header_order": [
          "method",
          "authority",
          "scheme",
          "path",
          "sec-ch-ua",
          "sec-ch-ua-mobile",
          "sec-ch-ua-platform",
          "upgrade-insecure-requests",
          "user-agent",
          "accept",
          "sec-gpc",
          "sec-fetch-site"
        ]
      },
      "page": {
        "user_agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/155.0.0.0 Safari/537.36",
        "platform": "Linux x86_64",
        "vendor": "Google Inc.",
        "languages": [
          "en-US"
        ],
        "hardware_concurrency": 8,
        "device_memory": 32,
        "max_touch_points": 0,
        "webdriver": false,
        "plugins": 7,
        "pdf_viewer": true,
        "ua_data": {
          "brands": [
            {
              "brand": "Brave",
              "version": "155"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Chromium",
              "version": "155"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Not(A:Brand",
              "version": "24"
            }
          ],
          "mobile": false,
          "platform": "Linux",
          "architecture": "x86",
          "bitness": "64",
          "formFactors": [
            "Desktop"
          ],
          "fullVersionList": [
            {
              "brand": "Brave",
              "version": "155.0.0.0"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Chromium",
              "version": "155.0.0.0"
            },
            {
              "brand": "Not(A:Brand",
              "version": "24.0.0.0"
            }
          ],
          "model": "",
          "platformVersion": "",
          "uaFullVersion": "155.0.0.0",
          "wow64": false
        },
        "screen": "1280x800x1280x800x24",
        "window": {
          "outer": "1280x727",
          "inner": "1280x720",
          "dpr": 1
        },
        "timezone": "UTC",
        "locale": "en-US",
        "webgl": {
          "vendor": "Google Inc. (Google)",
          "renderer": "ANGLE (Google, Vulkan 1.3.0 (SwiftShader Device (Subzero) (0x0000C0DE)), SwiftShader driver)",
          "version": "WebGL 2.0 (OpenGL ES 3.0 Chromium)"
        },
        "canvas_hash": "2025530b",
        "webgpu": true,
        "chrome_object": true,
        "chrome_runtime": false,
        "notification_permission": "default",
        "notification_query": "prompt",
        "has_focus": true,
        "connection_api": false,
        "stack_read_by_debugger": false,
        "features": {
          "iterator_includes": true,
          "iterator_join": true,
          "iterator_zip": true,
          "fontface_width": true,
          "css_text_decoration_inset": false,
          "css_scroll_axis_lock": false,
          "websocket_options_bag": null,
          "camera_element": true,
          "topics_api": false,
          "protected_audience": true,
          "shared_storage": false,
          "attribution_reporting": false,
          "request_storage_access_for": false,
          "webhid": true,
          "private_aggregation": false,
          "css_margin_trim": true,
          "css_text_decoration_skip_spaces": false,
          "css_corner_shorthand": false,
          "css_symbols": true,
          "stream_append_html": false,
          "webtransport_reliability": false,
          "window_maximize": false,
          "canvas_srgb_linear": false,
          "policy_media_playback_while_not_visible": true,
          "css_random": false,
          "css_scroll_snap_pair": false,
          "fenced_frames": false,
          "compression_dictionary": true
        }
      },
      "page_main_world": null,
      "sannysoft": {
        "checks": 57,
        "failed": 1,
        "failed_names": [
          "WebGL Renderer"
        ],
        "passed": 29
      },
      "plain_http": {
        "final_url": "http://ip-api.com/json/?fields=status",
        "status": 200,
        "title": "",
        "loaded": true,
        "warning_page": false,
        "page_text": "{\"status\":\"success\"}"
      },
      "playwright": {
        "evaluate_in_main_world": true,
        "console_events": true,
        "init_script": true,
        "route": true,
        "screenshot": true,
        "pdf": true,
        "mobile_emulation": true,
        "tracing": true
      },
      "browser_version": "155.0.8059.40"
    }
  ]
}
```

## Bottom line

Brave is Chrome's engine with Brave's opinions: the same rendering and Playwright support, but its own name in the client hints, a privacy header, one TLS extension fewer and fingerprint values that refuse to hold still.

Both cost the same thread on the fleet; choose by what the site should believe about its visitor.

---
Source: https://cdpfleet.com/docs/compare/chrome-vs-brave · Markdown: https://cdpfleet.com/docs/compare/chrome-vs-brave.md · All docs for AI tools: https://cdpfleet.com/llms.txt